Category Archives: Virulent

Sure, we could have posted this April Fools Family Matters Kickstarter spoof on April 1, but that would have been so predictable and obvious, so totally against the spirit of that day of punking. Yes, ten days later on April 11 feels much more appropriate to bring you our first Reginald VelJohnson in Uniform in quite some time.

Inspired by the recent record-breaking success of the Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter, those pranksters over at Funny or Die unleashed a series of spoof campaigns for big screen versions of several classic television shows, including Darkwing Duck, Wings and Dinosaurs. Also amongst this impressive roster of past series looking for a second life is the legendary sitcom, the TGIF anchor, Family Matters. And who better to be the face of this venture than Carl Winslow himself, Reginald VelJ.

In the proposed film the Winslow family is kidnapped by a mysterious villain who may or may not be someone they know, perhaps someone very close to them, perhaps even someone who lives right next door. With his family in captivity, Carl goes into Liam Neeson Taken mode, his deep baritone striking fear into any would be evildoers.

Well, if you still needed something to wash out the taste of misogyny and disrespect towards women after the Oscars, then a trio of announcements concerning female-centric projects might just finally cleanse your palate. Basically, it’s Ladies Night and all the girls drink for free. To wit:

1. Comedy Central has, very wisely, picked up a ten-episode order of Broad City, a comedy based on the web series of the same name created by and starring the brilliant Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson (full disclosure: they are close personal friends and two beautiful, strong, hilarious, independent women). Loosely based on their own lives, it’s the anti-Sex and the City that Girls** isn’t. Here is the Season 2 finale, a love letter to NYC that features Amy Poehler, who is executive producing the series (and is another beautiful, strong, hilarious, independent woman):

Yesterday Ben Folds Five, in conjunction with Nerdist and the Fraggles, released the video for “Do It Anyway,” the first single from their new and apparently much-anticipated album The Sound of the Life of the Mind, and it’s awesome. It’s just awesome.

Let’s just run down a quick list of why this is awesome:

1. Fraggles. Duh. Obvious #1.

2. Specifically Uncle Traveling Matt. Or, as you may know him, Tarzan from Survivor: ONE WORLD!

4. A pretty rocking Ben Folds Five song. In fact, it’s so good that we’ve been forced to reassess our whole perception of Ben Folds Five. Thanks to his service as a judge on the Sing-Off, Ben Folds had already endeared himself to us as perhaps the one and only genuinely polite, affable and respectful judge among all reality competitions. But that was specific to his personality and gratitude, his completely unironic earnestness and enthusiasm. It did nothing to make us think of “Brick” as anything other than an okay song that we periodically remember is about abortion which VH1 used to play every morning just before or just after the video for Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough,” a song we much preferred. Nor did his positivity and humor suggest to us that we should go back and give Forever and Amen a listen, that perhaps when we surmised that Ben Folds Five was for the other guys, we were mistaken. No, we just grew to really like the guy. However, this video completely calls into question everything we thought we knew about Ben Folds Five. Perhaps we had them wrong all along.

Just yesterday we mentioned how we much revere the World Champion 1986 New York Mets. And then this comes along. And just slays us. And no doubt made everyone else in the coffee shop wonder why we were staring at the computer screen, completely slack-jawed, on the verge of joyful tears. Our new favorite.

For the better part of the last year we’ve had the privilege of producing the wonderful little web series It Gets Betterish, created by and starring our dear friends Eliot Glazer and Brent Sullivan. And this week we premiered our most bonkers video to date, they were generous enough to let us direct. It’s our tribute to one of the great sitcom tropes of the late 80s/early 90s, equal parts Golden Girls, The Cosby ShowandGrowing Pains. Except our take involves trannies, home birth and Tilda Swinton.

Last fall the brilliant ladies at Broad Cityblew our minds with “Do the Right Thing,” their Spike Lee tribute first season finale. Those beautiful four and a half minutes set the bar pretty much impossibly high. But, not surprisingly, stars Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson found a way to rise to the occasion, delivering a pitch perfect love letter to New York City, complete with a couple delicious cameos from some familiar faces (not to mention a cameo from a delicious treat). It’s truly poetry, and comedy, in motion.

We’ve been dogged busy at work the last couple months, and have not only neglected this blog but also most pop culture news, viral videos, recent interviews, season premieres, breaking stories, and new music. However, when we discovered the existence of the first trailer for the new Muppets movie, we dropped everything. We made time. In fact, we made a general announcement that we were taking a two-minute break from our immediate responsibilities to enjoy the tease of a teaser. And enjoy we did.

And they must have also enjoyed it because they went ahead and put together another trailer steeped in the same kind of misdirection. Ladies and gentlemen, The Muppets teaser #2: